St. Augustine breezes past Columbia to move on to regional volleyball finals

The second time was again the charm as the St. Augustine volleyball team beat Columbia 3-0 (25-6, 25-20, 25-17) on Tuesday in the Class 6A regional semifinals.

The Tigers traveled to St. Augustine for the second time in just a week — and lost both matches.

The Yellow Jackets (19-4) will now play Niceville at 2 p.m. Saturday at home.

Yellow Jackets’ setter Molly Burkhardt led St. Augustine with 34 assists and said she thought her team played a great playoff game.

“It’s awesome, it feels really good and they are a great team, they fought hard,” she said.

The second set was the only time the Yellow Jackets really struggled with the Tigers, who posted several scoring runs during the game.

“We did a good job in the first game not letting them get too many points in a row; so we need to work on that because in the second game they went on runs again,” Burkhardt said.

Hannah Hudson had a huge kill in Game 3 for St. Augustine that boosted the Yellow Jackets’ momentum that took them to the final win. She finished with 10 total.

“It gave us a lot of momentum, definitely,” Hudson said. “(I was thinking to) change it up, when we keep doing the same things over and over again it doesn’t work.”

Yellow Jackets’ coach Anna Renton said her team is playing well together and peaking at the right time.

“They played really well,” she said. “Kudos to Columbia; they fought hard. They played well. They are a good team. We are going to keep doing what we are doing. The girls are peaking right now, and they are playing the best that I’ve seen them play.

“They are playing hard every day at practice because they want this and this is the result, so this is nice.”

Renton added playing on a Saturday shouldn’t throw St. Augustine off too much.

“It will be out of usual routine. … I think that we have gained so much mental toughness throughout the season that the girls are mentally tough now.”

Other Yellow Jackets that had a good night on the court were Sierra Riter with 22 points, 14 kills and five aces. Logan Holanchock recorded 12 digs and Briana Maxwell added two blocks.

Columbia (21-7) took the long ride home to Lake City on Tuesday, but Tiger’s coach Rebecca Golden was happy how the season ended for her team.

“We are much improved over last year,” she said. “Last year we ended at 13-12 and this year 21-7. Their hard work in the offseason definitely shows this year and we look forward to the future of the program.

“We want to wish St. Augustine the best of luck they truly deserve it, they played a great game.”